Ingush No Longer Believe in ‘Existence of Mythical Russian Federation,’ Shevchenko Says

Paul Goble

            Stanton, April 7 – Because Moscow isn’t defending their rights across the entire country, the Ingush no longer believe in “the existence of the mythical Russian Federation” but rather are acting on the assumption that the only people they can rely on are themselves, a view that increasingly affects other North Caucasians as well, Maksim Shevchenko says.

            In an extensive interview with Kazan’s Business-Gazeta, the Russian commentator who specialized on the Islamic regions of the country says that the issues that the Ingush protesters are raising are a manifestation of their “distrust of the Russian state” because it doesn’t ensure their full citizenship everywhere (business-gazeta.ru/article/419865).

                “Moscow has not secured a single social and legal field across the entire territory of the Russian Federation but on the contrary has promoted the dividing up of a single constitutional field – especially in the Caucasus – into certain ethno-feudal principalities. These principalities arise as a result of the policy of the federal center,” not the localities. 

            For the Muslim peoples of the North Caucasus, Shevchenko continues, Moscow’s talk about “’a Russian world’” has made the situation worse because it has prompted people to think that the country’s population consists of “’ethnic Russians,’” on the one hand, and “’all the rest’” on the other.

            The current regime in Moscow “has transformed a single democratic space into separate ethnocratic territories. Moscow has developed tribalism and nationalism, pits against each other the ethnic self-consciousness of peoples because it doesn’t need any single political nation.” Such a nation could ask questions about what the Kremlin is doing.

            According to Shevchenko, “the Ingush understand perfectly well that no one will stand up for their interests, not Vladimir Putin, not Sergey Kiriyenko, not presidential plenipotentiary Aleksandr Matovnikov.  And therefore, they in general do not believe in this state, do not believe in its institutions either local or federal.”

            The situation is complicated by struggles among the force structures, among the teips with some wanting to get rid not only of Yevkurov but also his teip which is centered in North Osetia, and the generations of people in Ingushetia where the role of elders is enormous and where the elders are now leading the protests, the journalist says.

            Two things may limit the protests or cause them to grow into something more frightening. On the one hand, many Ingush fear that their republic might be subsumed under Kadyrov’s Chechnya. And on the other, they are worried that if they push Yevkurov out, Moscow may install an outsider in his place. They do not want either outcome.

            Georgian commentator Oleg Panfilov echoes many of these concerns. He says that it is difficult to predict how things will end in Ingushetia or how much of an impact they will have on other peoples and republics in the North Caucasus, all of whom are watching what happens there intently (ru.krymr.com/a/oleg-panfilov-burlyashaya-ingushetiya/29864921.html).

                But one thing is clear to everyone in the region, he says. “The Russian powers are applying the very same methods of suppressing small peoples that they did 200 years ago.”

            Meanwhile, today, on the ground, there were several other developments:

·         The Ingush Committee for National Unity put out a video appeal declaring that the protests will continue “until Ingushetia is headed by someone who works for the interests of the people” (fortanga.org/2019/04/ikne-obratilsya-k-narodu/#more-3128).

·         Protests by individuals and teips continued in various parts of Ingushetia over the continued detention of protest leaders (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/333971/ and amanho.com/?p=6063).

·         And Ingush diasporas in Moscow and across Europe either demonstrated or announced plans to do so in support of the opposition (zamanho.com/?p=6068, kavkazr.com/a/29865407.html  and fortanga.org/2019/04/v-belgii-proshel-miting-ingushskoj-diaspory/). Significantly, those in Europe demanded that Moscow “stop discriminating against the Ingush people.”